The East Riding hamlet of Everthorpe has a claim to fame. And no, it’s not HMP Humber, the Category C prison nearby.
Everthorpe’s USP is an OS FBM: an Ordnance Survey Fundamental Bench Mark. Most of us are familiar with OS trig points – summit concrete pillars once used for surveying heights and positions pre-GPS. There are 5,500 of them in Britain; the one pictured on this page is Lowther Hill in Dumfries & Galloway, which I visited last summer.
Well, FBMs are sort of supercharged pillars; Russell-Group benchmarks; Premier League trig points. There are about 190 of them, all still very much in use. Our current OS map data are based on their high-accuracy GPS measurements: down to within 0.1mm.
Like an iceberg, most of the FBM is unseen: a wardrobe-sized chamber buried beneath the pillar with various measurement devices and GPS equipment.
FBMs are unseen on OS maps, too. Clearly they’re not keen on publicising them too much.
Yorkshire appears to have six FBMs: Bulmer, north of York; at Mickleby, near Loftus in North Yorkshire; Skipton, in the Yorkshire Dales; Flamborough, near Bridlington; Patrington, out towards Spurn Point; and this one at Everthorpe. Between North and South Cave. Outside Brough. Which is not far from Hull. In East Yorkshire.
I’ve been riding past it most weeks for years now, on my regular ride from my home in York to my mum’s in Ferriby, and I never knew what I was missing.
Everthorpe’s FBM is on one edge of the triangular green sided by High Road and Low Road. It’s set against railings – like many FBMs, apparently, for protection – and is surrounded by daffodils that must make a fine show in spring. There were some snowdrops out today, too, with snowdrop bulbs available for sale from the house opposite.
That’s your only chance to spend money here, though: there’s no village facilities such as cafe, pub, shop or blacksmith. A mile towards South Cave though is the Zoom Cafe (‘Bike Nights – Events – Cycle & Dog Friendly’) for you to relax in after your benchmark-spotting, or your social appointments at HMP Humber.
And no, I don’t know what happens if you push that Tardis-like button on the top of the FBM. But it could be the basis of an entertaining sci-fi comedy drama, set in East Yorkshire and the Gliese exoplanetary system.